


funeral

by mjscorner



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Undeath, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) Needs a Hug, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Lives, Precious Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Sad, Sad Peter Parker, Sad with a Happy Ending, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Nightmares, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark-centric, Tragedy, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjscorner/pseuds/mjscorner
Summary: "We need to plan a funeral."Tony immediately felt all of the blood in his body rush to his cheeks, his ears, his eyes. He saw red. He felt red. He breathed red."No. No, we don't.""Tony...""We're not planning a fucking funeral. Whose funeral? Who the fuck are we burying?"Steve's eyes were glassed over now, too. "Bucky." He used all of his energy to choke out the name. "Sam. T'Challa. Wanda and Vision.""Peter."Tony snapped his head back toward the threshold, his heart leaping to his throat.May stood there now. Natasha held her stare to the floor beside her."...May-""We can't go on like this, Tony. We can't let his memory linger in our minds while we just- we try to bring him back."She took a deep, composing breath, her lip trembling."He'll be in our heads forever."ORin the aftermath of the final snap, tony reflects on the last five years without peter after finally getting him back
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	funeral

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i know may got snapped in infinity war and endgame but for dramatic effect, I'm saying she was alive for the five years  
> also this was HEAVILY influenced by my rewatching of haunting of hill house/ bly manor

The books and the movies got it wrong.

The ones where someone you love comes back from the dead, that is. The ones where the family reacts to seeing them again, after all that time being gone.

They make you think that the tears will come immediately. They make you think that the relief will overpower all else. They make you think that the only coherent thought, the only audible question in your head is " _where have you BEEN_?" 

They make you think that every problem you've ever had evaporates into thin air when you finally get that person back.

...But the books and movies are wrong.

Because Tony isn't relieved. He isn't crying. His problems aren't evaporating into thin air.

He's looking down at Peter, and his only coherent thought is a choked sob of grief.

_I don't have to live without you anymore._

No, his problems did not evaporate as soon as Peter swung back into life. He always just assumed that getting Peter back would make the profound sadness in his heart go away, that if Peter were ever able to somehow rise from his own ashes, Tony would be relieved of the cavernous guilt and grief that had been festering in his heart for five long years.

But seeing Peter's wide eyes staring into his, hearing his excited, out-of-breath voice echoing around the walls of Tony's skull...

That only brought the grief and suffocating guilt back with more of a vengeance than ever before. 

Peter, who Tony had spent the past thirty minutes digging through debris to find. Peter, who Tony had reunited with briefly on the battlefield, in denial and at a complete loss for words and actions other than _hold him._ Peter, who, after Carol had snapped her fingers and flew above Earth's atmosphere, had gotten lost in the ashes of the compound, now lying battered and bruised and unconscious among the dust of their enemies.

Peter wasn't awake.

But dammit, he couldn't be dead, either. He'd already been dead. For five years.

"Tony."

That was Steve. That was Steve's voice, Steve's hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Tony, hey."

That was Steve looking over Tony's shoulder as Tony cradled Peter's head in his hand, his blood-soaked hair leaving droplets on his fingers.

"Tony."

_No._

"Tony."

_I need more time._

* * *

_"Tony."_

_Tony turned his head toward the window as he sat at the bar of the compound kitchen, his tenth cup of coffee steaming in his grip._

_"Tony, c'mon. It's been a week since we've talked. I mean, really talked."_

_"I don't have anything to say to you, Cap."_

_A sigh. A chair scraping against the floor. A warmth beside Tony as someone sat next to him. He didn't flinch._

_"We, uh...we need to talk. As a team."_

_"What team? There is no team. There's no one left."_

_"You can't do that to Nat. Bruce. Thor."_

_A pause. Tony bit the inside of his cheek._

_"...Rhodes."_

_"Stop it."_

_"You can't just shut down like this, Tony. Just this once, we all need you. Just this last time. Your friends, your wife."_

_"Give me a break."_

_"I will. But just this once, we need you."_

_Tony lifted his head at the sound of a shuffle coming from the threshold. Natasha, eyes glossy and hair disheveled, stood there staring at the ground, her arms crossed over her chest protectively._

_"Tony."_

_She was heartbroken. Maybe more than him._

_...No. That was impossible._

_"Tony, we, uh..." she sniffed, blinking the tears out of her eyes and swallowing thickly as she lifted her chin rather pathetically._

_"We need to plan a funeral."_

_Tony immediately felt all of the blood in his body rush to his cheeks, his ears, his eyes. He saw red. He felt red. He breathed red._

_"No. No, we don't."  
_

_"Tony..."_

_"We're not planning a fucking funeral. Whose funeral? Who the fuck are we burying?"_

_Steve's eyes were glassed over now, too. They had been ever since Tony came back to Earth, but it was more prominent now. Not as concealed._

_"Bucky." Steve used all of his energy to choke out the name. "Sam. T'Challa. Wanda and Vision."  
_

_"Peter."_

_Tony snapped his head back toward the threshold, his heart leaping to his throat._

_May stood there now. Natasha held her stare to the floor beside her._

_"...May-"_

_"We can't go on like this, Tony. We can't let his memory linger in our minds while we just- we try to bring him back."_

_She took a deep, composing breath, her lip trembling._

_"He'll be in our heads forever."  
_

* * *

They'd taken Peter back to the Tower.

Tony bought the Tower about three years ago. Logically, he'd known Nat, Steve, Rhodey, and even Carol were still finding ways to bring back the Vanished, and that was fine by him. But he also knew they were stupid enough to somehow make it work.

And Tony was anything but stupid.

He had plans. Hundreds of thousands of possible future scenarios that FRIDAY was more than equipped to handle. Plans like Steve's Circus Troupe somehow unleashing yet another alien army on Earth, or bringing back the Vanished only to discover they've ripped the space-time continuum in half, or any scenario where Bruce took a crack at time travel and astrophysics.

Most scenarios ended with the Compound in shambles.

That's why he bought back Stark Tower.

The only features he cared about restoring were Barndoor Protocol and, of course, the MedBay. 

The MedBay could protect civilians. Could protect Morgan and Pepper and Happy and May. Should Steve and his following of sheep decide to try something unprecedented and unleash a galactic shitstorm on Earth again, Tony had a plan.

He anticipated thousands of outcomes. But he never anticipated that any of them come true.

Like Scenario 476B: 

They bring back the Vanished. The Chitauri return and unleash war on the Avengers. The compound is in ruins. The Earth has zero functioning medical centers to account for the billions of lives that returned to Earth in one day.

So, they'd taken Peter back to the Tower, where he rested and recovered from his injuries in a bed on the top floor overlooking the city.

He wanted that to be the first thing Peter saw when he woke up. The city he'd died for.

"Tony?"

Cho approached Tony as he sat in the waiting room of the MedBay, her hair in a disheveled bun and her breaths frantic. Rightfully so: she was among the only staff on call at the Tower as more and more survivors flooded in through the doors.

"H-hey, Helen."

"What-what're you-" Cho paused, fixing her posture and smiling down at him hopefully. "Well, I-I'd just assumed you'd be with-with-well, you know."

"Yeah." Tony paused, taking a moment to inhale a composing breath. "Yeah, I, uh...I'm just waiting. I figured I'd wait for May to get here, and, uh, you know. Let her see him first."

Cho seemed to understand the reasoning beneath his words, because she was smiling in that knowing way she usually did and stepping forward to place a rather-awkward hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay to go in there and see him. Happy was sent for Morgan and May just a few minutes ago. With all the traffic and commotion out there, I mean, Jesus. You'll be waiting here forever."

Tony nodded, slow and cautiously. A smile followed, one that didn't nearly reach his eyes.

He glanced toward Peter's door, the kid's name scribbled hastily on a white board below the room number. Helen didn't take her eyes off of him.

"That's not what's wrong, is it?"

Tony closed his eyes. He shakily inhaled, immediately holding his breath as a new wave of tears threatened to emerge.

"What's wrong?"

_Not now._

"I mean, what's _really_ wrong?"

* * *

_"He's in there because of me."_

_Steve's head snapped toward Tony as they sat on the couch outside of the funeral room. An empty one they'd found on the outskirts of the city, one that May had insisted they go to._

_They'd held Ben's funeral there, too._

_"What?"_

_"Peter. He's..."_

_"Don't say that."_

_"Shut up, Steve. You weren't there."_

_"I was there. I was there when Thanos snapped his fingers, and it wasn't anyone's fault except his."_

_Tony clenched his jaw, closing his eyes with an exhale. His body was surprisingly still; no bouncing knees, no fidgeting hands. Just stillness._

_As still as a dead man._

_The service was small, of course. Just Nat, Steve, Bruce, Pepper, Rhodey, May. Thor was god knows where. Peter’s friends were all dead, his teachers and remaining family, too._

_The only ones left to know him, to mourn him, to tell his stories...they were six people sitting in front of an empty casket. Faces urgent, hair neat, shoulders tense._

_Absolutely, positively heart-broken._

_No one spoke. Not at first. Just stared at the framed photo of Peter propped up on an easel, beaming without a care in the world. That’s how most of his smiles were._

_Though this time, his happiness and innocence were illuminated. It was beaming stronger than ever before. It was an echo of his life, a reminder that Tony..._

_Tony had failed his kid._

_His person. His best friend. His lab buddy. His partner in crime._

_His child._

_Tony swallowed down a rush of tears with wide eyes as May slowly but surely rose from her seat and made to stand center with the front of the empty casket. All eyes were on her as she stared at the ground, pursed her lips, fiddled with her hands. Then everyone else did the same themselves._

_“I, um...”_

_She shifted her weight from foot to foot. She stared at the carpet as she calculated her words._

_“I had to pick Peter up from a hospital. Ben and I did.”_

_Tony looked up at that. Slowly, as if the sight of her might kill him dead._

_”The nurses there, they sat and talked with him about cars, trucks, Iron Man...” she stared ahead, lost in the memory with a smile. “He still wore those coke bottle glasses. The ones that make your eyes so big and twinkly and...and young.”_

_She sniffed as she brushed back a lock of her hair behind her ear._

_“He was so young.”_

_Tony’s eyes fell again. Pepper shifted so that their hips touched._

_“Young when he lost his parents, young when we lost Ben, young when he became Spider-Man...Even when he was looking at colleges, he was...he was still that baby-faced kid with the coke bottle glasses.”_

_She nodded to herself. She had that irreplaceable, reminiscent smile plastered on her face, the sadness still there but it was concealed just ever so slightly._

_“And...we weren’t-we weren’t related. Not by blood, anyway. He’s my nephew on Ben’s side, so, y-you know...I didn’t necessarily, uh...’sign-up’ for this, uh...”_

_She lifted her jaw. Clenched it over and over._

_“The last time I saw him, he was rushing out the door for school. A field trip to MOMA. I made him breakfast, but he doesn’t-he didn’t eat. He would feel so bad that I put the effort into cooking for him, but I wish-I wish he had comprehended that it’s my job to take care of him. It my job to feed him because I’m-“_

_She stopped. Her voice had crescendoed in a frenzy of grief and heartache and memory, ceasing into silence as she stared at that one point in the distance, calculating._

_“...He may have been my nephew. But, um...”_

_Everyone rose their heads in an effort to be supportive, to look at May and let her know she wasn’t alone. But one look at her confirmed she was miles away._

_“But I was always his Mom.”_

_Tony went numb._

_He didn’t feel the tear run down his cheek, or the feeling of Pepper’s hand on his knee, squeezing, urging him down to Earth._

_All he knew, all he felt...was numb._

* * *

May used to tell Tony that Peter wasn’t dead. He was just away. 

Away with Ned, Michelle, everyone. Not dead, not crossing into some version of the afterlife.

Just away. 

He didn’t know what it meant, but it made it a little easier to come to terms with it. To move on from it.

It made sense now that Peter was back. He was never dead. Tony wasn’t sure where he’d been, or what he’d seen or gone through, but he wasn’t dead.

Just away. 

Despite the years of torturing himself, telling himself that Peter was never coming back, Tony always knew, like a speck in the fortress of his mind, that Peter would come back to him someday. That’s what happened when people died the way Peter did. He didn’t die of a heart attack or a stab wound or anything normal: he disappeared into thin air. He turned to dust. 

That...wasn’t the normal way of going out.

So, naturally, that meant he wasn’t dead.

He couldn’t have been, because he was _here._ He was right here in one of the hospital beds Tony had designed just for him because, well, Peter had a habit of ending up in one.

Tony kept a firm grip on Peter’s hand, to both assure himself that the kid was real and to make sure his heart was still beating. His other hand was stuck in the repetitive motion of running his fingers through Peter’s curls, still damp after Cho had washed the blood out of it.

He was grateful to have finally escaped his high of adrenaline and be here with his kid in the moment. He knew it wasn’t permanent, but that feeling that none of this was real had finally diminished into nothing but a whisper in his brain.

That is, until Peter stirred in his sleep.

That soft smile Tony had had plastered on since he sat himself down by Peter’s bedside was suddenly gone from his face, along with any color. Peter groaned, his brow furrowed and his eyes slowly but surely drooping opening.

The oxygen mask taking up half of his face didn’t hide Peter’s confusion, nor the way his eyes lit up hopefully when they finally landed on Tony, glassy and innocent and sad.

”Mis’er St’rk?”

Tony’s breath hitched in his throat at the quiet croak of his name. His eyes focused dead on the way Peter fought hard to keep his eyes open, the way his breath fogged up his oxygen mask.

Little, insignificant, breathtaking things that proved this kid was actually alive. Actually breathing. 

Tony leaned forward, eyes wide and feverish with worry. He took the hand that had been running its fingers through Peter’s hair and cupped his face, the kid relaxing into it though his brow remained furrowed in confusion.

“Mis’er...St’rk.”

Tony’s smile was back.

”H-hey, kid.”

Peter let his eyes close and his lip quirk in a smile beneath his mask. Tony was exhaling a soft laugh at the sight, leaning forward with his eyes closed and placing a long-overdue, grief-filled kiss on Peter’s forehead.

“Peter,” Tony couldn’t help but choke out in disbelief, absolutely floored by the sight of his kid, groggy and bruised and beat and sleepy but still smiling softly and leaning into Tony’s touch and being a great beam of light at the end of a five year-long period of darkness. 

Peter sighed contently at the sound of his name, falling fast asleep again within seconds.

Peter hadn’t even the slightest clue how much he meant to the man, the room reserved for him in Tony’s heart. 

“Peter...”

* * *

” _Peter?”_

_Tony could’ve sworn he’d saw the kid standing at the foot of his and Pepper’s bed at the lake house, could’ve bet on his parent’s graves that he’d seen his kid’s curls outlined in the dark before the figure turned and stumbled out of the bedroom._

_It was dark, but he knew his kid._

_He glanced to his left. Pepper was still fast asleep._

_So, he threw the covers off of himself and began his investigation through the house._

_He closed their bedroom door softly, cursing the old creak of the wood beneath his feet though the urgency of the situation dimmed the annoyance. He made his way past Morgan’s bedroom, down the stairs, through the kitchen._

_And there he was._

_Tony could see his kid standing on the opposite side of the kitchen island, standing in the suit he’d died in. With disheveled hair and urgent eyes, he wrapped a protective arm around his ribs, looking down at his other hand in horror._

_“H-help.”_

_Tony stared, dumb-founded._

_It’s not real._

_It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real._

_”H-help me, Mister Stark, please.”_

_Peter rounded the counter to get to Tony, skin pale and dripping with sweat. Tony realized with a terrible drop of his heart that Peter’s hands were turning that familiar ash color, his suit crackling into flakes of dust._

_”This isn’t real.”_

_”Help-“ Peter collapsed onto his knees, a choked sob escaping his blue lips as he feverishly struggled to get back to feet that no longer existed._

_Tony watched with familiar helplessness._

_“Mister Stark, I...” Peter’s skin on his face began to dust, his eyes losing all hope as he fumbled for words, any words to somehow make it easier, to soften the blow of the absolute fuckery unfolding before him._

_Tony watched, mouth parted in numb surprise, eyes glassed over with tears._

_”I’m sorry, Mister Stark.”_

_And, one moment too late, Tony lurched forward._

_But Peter was gone._

_Tony fell to his knees and thoughtlessly rubbed his hands on the ground to feel for Peter’s ashes._

_But there was nothing there._

_Because it wasn’t real._

_He was punching the cabinet in front of him without giving it much thought before he placed two steadying hands on the ground and sobbed._

_He sobbed into the ground, strained and quiet so as not to wake the only two people he had left. His back bounced as he heaved and fought for air and squeezed his eyes shut and begged any god that would listen to just, for the love of all that was good, to bring his child back to him._

_God, he didn’t know how May woke up every morning._

_Going on without your child was the most impossible thing Tony had ever done._

_”Daddy?”_

_Tony jumped, falling back on his hands and staring with wide, tear-filled eyes as a four-year-old Morgan was standing in the threshold of the kitchen, her stuffed elephant in her grip as she stared worriedly at Tony on the floor._

_"Morgan." Tony frantically wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands and turned away from his daughter in a vain attempt to hide his depressive spiral. "Morgan, what're you-what're you doing up, baby?"_

_"My spidey sense."_

_Tony blinked. "What?"_

_She shrugged. "Like you and Petey have. When something is wrong."_

_Tony pondered. He forgot how much he had told Morgan about her older brother._

_"Oh. Oh, yeah."_

_Morgan waddled toward Tony, her elephant still tight in her grip and the blanket wrapped around her shoulders trailing on the ground behind her. She sat next to Tony on the floor with her legs crossed in a pretzel, obliviously knocking the wind clean out of Tony's lungs with the mere sight of her._

_"Are you sad?"_

_Tony just stared for a moment, unable to hide the glossiness of his eyes or the redness of his cheeks._

_"Yes," he eventually choked out. "So sad I can't even tell you."_

_He leaned back against the counter behind him with an exhale. Morgan mirrored him, looking up at his sullen expression with her own sad eyes._

_"Is it 'bout Petey?"_

_Tony closed his eyes. "Yes."_

_Morgan looked down at her elephant and picked at its' ear. Tony looked down and watched her._

_"Daddy?"_

_"Yeah, Mo."_

_"...Why did Petey die?"_

_Morgan looked up at him quizzically. He took in a composing breath before he met her gaze, summoning all of the strength he had to keep his eyes open and not fall apart._

_"I don't know."_

_Morgan nuzzled into his side. Tony took her under his arm with haste, squeezing her tight and planting a kiss on her head._

_"I'm just so sad that he did."_

* * *

Peter woke to the sight of Tony resting his head beneath his arm at the edge of the hospital mattress, exhausted, steady breaths making his back rise and fall.

Peter closed his eyes and smiled softly, squeezing the hand Tony held with an iron grip. It was enough, of course, to make Tony snap his head up at a violent speed, his wide, bloodshot eyes staring at Peter in bewilderment.

"Hello."

Tony blinked. "Hi."

Peter closed his eyes and raised one arm with a wince, making to remove his oxygen mask.

"No."

"I don' want it."

"Stop."

"I can't see with it on."

"Peter."

Peter was able to rip the mask off of his face and gulp in a breath of fresh air, smiling contentedly. Tony ceased trying and only stared, floored and knocked to pieces and wrecked with relief.

"Sorry I got hurt," Peter sighed. "Didn't mean to."

Tony didn't say anything. He didn't think he could. He was in a depressive, reminiscent, exhausted state of mind and could only stare, could only slowly bring himself to terms with his kid's newfound existence and pray to god someone had caught the kid up on the last five years so Tony wouldn't have to.

"Hey, Mis'er Stark?"

Tony let out an exhale, that smile of wonderment admiration slowly but surely creeping back onto his face. "Yeah, kid?"

"...Did I..."

And the smile was gone.

Tony squeezed Peter's hand, his eyes sad and face sullen. Peter studied Tony's face, studied the lines of grief and heartache on his skin and the streaks of grey in his hair. 

Peter closed his eyes. And he nodded.

"Peter." Tony leaned forward, his left hand still holding on tightly to Peter's while he took his right and continued his cycle of combing his fingers through Peter's hair. 

Peter closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"Pete, I know..." a sigh. "I know...more than you can imagine. You were...you were gone for...for five years, and no one could have..."

He paused, calculating his words carefully before he was studying Peter again, examining the way he lied in his hospital bed, bruised and scraped and _alive_ , but grieving.

"But I...I'm here, kid. I'm _here_ for you. A lot has changed, but that hasn't. And it won't."

Peter didn't say anything, not at first. He opened teary eyes and brought them to meet Tony's. 

Grey hair said a lot about someone. Just yesterday...or, in everyone else's case, five years ago, Tony had a head full of dark brown hair, had eyes that told stories of grief but it was never as prominent as it looked now. 

Now, Peter was looking at someone who had been through hell and back. Bags under his eyes and frown lines under his mouth and streaks of grey in his hair were like a roadmap, a microcosm of the weight Tony had carried in his heart and continued to endure. 

But there were also smile lines on his eyes and cheeks, a twinkle of hope in his eyes, a smile that looked like it hadn't graced his features in sometime. 

"Are you okay, kid?"

Peter blinked himself out of his stupor. Tony's eyes were knitted together in concern, his eyes feverish and tired. Peter stared at him a moment longer before he cleared his throat.

"Yeah," Peter said. Weak and small and doubt-filled. 

Tony tilted his head.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

Tony smiled. He swallowed down tears.

"Me, too."


End file.
